He’d done it before.
Just then, the door to the car opened, and three more policemen filed in. They stayed at the door, far back from the rest of the scrum.
Shit. Seven on one. They were taking no chances. Gentry had no illusions about disabling four men, then advancing twenty-five feet and taking down three more, before being riddled with gunfire.
“Please stand,” said the silver-haired policeman in front of him.
“Why? What did I do?”
“Please stand, and I will explain.”
“I’m just heading to—”
“I will not ask you again.”
Court dropped his shoulders, stood, and took one stepinto the aisle. A young cop approached and spun him around. Quickly, his hands were cuffed behind his back. The other passengers in the car watched with fascination. Camera phones appeared, and Gentry did his best to turn away from them.
He was frisked by the young officer, who almost immediately discovered the folding knife in his pocket and the ankle holster on his leg. His seat was searched, and the pistol lifted high into the air like a trophy for all in the car to see.
“I am a United States federal agent.” Court said this because he didn’t really have much else. He did not expect them to just hand him back his gun and pat him on the ass, but he hoped they might relax a little and give him some opportunity to escape.
“With no identification?” asked the officer in charge.
“I lost it.”
“So you said. Have you been this morning in Guarda?” asked one of the cops.
The Gray Man, who, surrounded by camera phones and wide-eyed stares, did not feel much like a gray man, did not answer. One of the new policemen back at the entrance spoke into his walkie-talkie. A moment later, the train began to slow.
TWENTY
Riegel took the call at eleven thirty-eight in the morning.
“Sir, Kruger again. Gentry has been taken off the train at a little village called Marnand. Not a scheduled stop.”
“Taken off by who?”
“Municipaux. He’s cuffed and just sitting on the platform, surrounded by the police. I heard one of the cops calling for a transport wagon to be sent up from Lausanne. It should take no more than thirty minutes.”
“Did you get off the train as well?”
“No other passengers were allowed off. I’ll disembark in Lausanne and go directly to the police station, wait for him to arrive.”
Riegel stared at a map on his computer as he hung up and called Lloyd. “Tell the Venezuelans Gentry’s in Marnand, about thirty kilometers north of Lausanne. The police have him.”
The American answered back immediately. “They can’t have him! We need him!”
Riegel looked across his desk. The heads of a dozen brilliant animals, trophies of his hunts, stared back at him. Hesaid, “I know that. Tell the Venezuelans they are weapons free. They can destroy whoever gets in their way.”
“Now we’re talking! Are they any good?”
“They are from the General Intelligence Office, Hugo Chavez’s secret police. They are the best Caracas has to offer.”
“Right. Are they any good?”
“We’ll know soon enough, won’t we?”
—
